


(with all of the faces) you were the one next to me

by genbenkenobi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen, Kid Tony Stark, Mentions of Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genbenkenobi/pseuds/genbenkenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is three years old when he first sees a person with a metal arm in his house. When he gets older, he knows better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(with all of the faces) you were the one next to me

**Author's Note:**

> Title from OneRepublic's "If I Lose Myself"
> 
> Based loosely off this headcanon;  
> http://winteriron.tumblr.com/post/82530057910/whenever-the-brainwashing-started-to-wear-off-the
> 
> English isn't my first language, first time posting, etc. :)
> 
> Any mistakes are mine, un-beta'ed.

Tony is three years and four months - every month and every day is important - old when he first sees the weird guy watching him from the bushes outside of the garden. He’s been reading the book Jarvis gave him for his birthday and didn’t touch it until now when he looks up from it and notices the guy.

He’s trying to hide - to make sure that no one would notice him. But Tony does. He doesn’t say a word or moves; he’s afraid that if he does, the guy will leave, disappear. And for some reason he doesn’t want it to happen. Maybe because he doesn’t have much friends and this guy - from what he is able to see -  is lonely, too.

He gives him a small smile to acknowledge his presence even though he doesn’t do so in return. He just stands there, looking at Tony but sometimes looking around as well to see the surroundings. He frowns, and Tony frowns as well. Tony follows his gaze the next time when it goes down to his left arm. But- it’s not just a normal, human arm like everyone else has. It’s a metal arm and Tony stares at it; only realizing he’s doing this when the guy unclenches the fist.

Maybe he should call someone - his rational part tells him. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he puts down his book and stands up.

But then Jarvis comes outside to call him for dinner. Tony nods and turns to look at the guy, who is still there. “I will be back soon,” he tells him after he makes sure that they are the only people around. “Stay here, okay?”

When he comes back hours later, the guy is gone.

\- - -

It’s his fourth birthday when Peggy comes to visit them again and tells him a story about Captain Rogers - even though dad has been telling him about him every time whenever he could - and his friend Bucky.

She shows him a picture of Captain Rogers with another man and Tony _knows_ him. And he knows that he didn’t imagine it.

“I know him,” he tell her and points at Bucky. “I saw him outside while I was reading-”

“Antho-” his father starts, and Tony knows what’s going to come next.

“No,” he cuts him off before he could even complete his name and stands up. “He’s not dead,” Both his father and Peggy look at him but he ignores them and takes the picture of Captain Rogers and Bucky. "I saw him."

He promises himself that day that he won't talk with anyone about this ever again.

\- - -

The next time he sees that guy - no, it’s not just another guy in the street, it’s _Bucky Barnes_ \- he’s ten and half and it’s Christmas Eve. He’s outside again even though it’s cold, but he’s back from boarding school for the holidays, Howard is back from his business trip in Eastern Europe, and Tony doesn’t want to see him just yet.

There are talks in the news about the assassination of one politician or another a few days back, but he doesn’t really mind.

It’s been years since the last time he’s seen the man - three years old and still remembering. But Bucky hasn’t changed a bit. He looks the same apart for his hair that grew out a little. It’s weird, but also nice in a way.

He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and waves a little, hoping that maybe this time Bucky will join him and they could talk a little before he disappears again.

That doesn’t happen.

Tony sits there for hours, maybe he shouldn’t, but it’s nice to have a company of sorts. Even if that means that Bucky would just stand there in the far end and watch him while he read or worked on his school project.

Jarvis calls him to dinner and Tony turns to look at him and says that he will be right there. When he looks back to where Bucky is - he’s gone.

 

\- - -

Twenty one years old and he finds himself standing in front of his parents’ graves. They’re both dead - car crash, but part of him doesn’t accept this. Obie is there for him - always has been - but he just wants to be _alone_.

He sits there for hours; mainly for no reason. He heirs Stark Industries and everything his father owned, but he doesn’t want to run the company. Not now. He refuses to cry, but all he can think of is the last conversation he had with his father before he left the house.

When he returns home after a night at the bar, drunk, he swears he sees Bucky sitting on the couch in the living room. Maybe he’s just imagining it -  he hasn’t seen him since he was ten and it was Christmas Eve - because he needs someone right now, even if that certain someone is supposed to be dead according to everyone that knew him. “Bucky?” He asks in almost a whisper and he swears the man is flinching slightly at the name but doesn’t pay that much attention and passes out on the floor.

In the morning he wakes up on the couch.

\- - -

Four years later Tony is twenty five years old and now the CEO of Stark Industries, living in Malibu.

The news is full of reports about the assassination of two US diplomats in Pakistan.

He doesn’t pay much attention to it. It’s not important (most of the times) if it’s not about him or the company.

JARVIS - now the AI - informs him that there’s an unknown person outside, walking around the mansion like he isn’t sure whether he should knock or not. Tony pulls the feeds. It takes him a few seconds but he recognizes the person’s left arm and the person himself. It takes him a full minute to make sure that he isn’t just imagining it - that it isn’t the lack of sleep.

He stays in his workshop, just watching the live feed. He knows it’s stupid and he should just go and get Bucky in because he has so many explaining to do, but he doesn’t.

When he wakes up a few hours later, Tony realizes he must have fallen asleep and watches the feed that he missed.

There are two vans and a few people an hour into the feed and they’re pulling Bucky - with some struggle from him - into one of the vans.

Tony hates himself for not inviting him in.

\- - -

He never tells anyone about Bucky. Not ever since he was four. Not to Rhodey, not to even Pepper.

After New York, when he sits with the rest of the team - they are a team now, who could ever believe that? - and eats his shawarma, he glances at Steve and considers telling him about his friend, but decides against it. Especially not after what happened almost two decades ago, because then the question will come.

‘ _Why didn’t you help him?_ ’

\- - -

Tony Stark is forty-four years old and lives in New York when he hears about Fury’s death, the shooting on a bridge in broad daylight in D.C. A few days later every SHIELD’s (and HYDRA’s, apparently; he’s so pissed he missed this) file is on the internet and he has to delete every file about the repulsor technology, Project Insight in the fucking Potomac and Steve in the hospital from what he heard.

It takes him a few days to read through the important files; the real purpose of Project Insight (he hates himself more for being a part of it), his parents’ death - assassination; _The Winter Soldier_ \- and The Winter Soldier - _Bucky Barnes_ ; tortured, brainwashed.

Everything makes so much sense now.

Steve is out of the hospital and they talk on the phone but he still can’t bring himself to tell him about his best friend.

\- - -

It’s a few months after the D.C. Fiasco like Tony loves to call it, early in the morning and he goes out for a 6AM coffee in Starbucks.

A small part of has been waiting for that to happen, but it still catches him by surprise when he finds himself face to face with no one else than Bucky Barnes.

They stand like that for what seems like hours, but it’s actually only a few minutes. None of them says a word. There is some sort of familiarity there, standing in front of that man even though it’s been so many years since the last time.  And he knows that the guy - with the same lonely, confused look he remembers from all these years ago - can’t be the same guy that murdered his parents and Tony, even though he doesn’t say it out loud, forgives him.

“Barnes,” he says after a few more seconds.

“Stark,” comes the reply.

He knows Bucky Barnes since he was three years and four months old; he knows that this time Bucky won’t be gone when he will look away.


End file.
